A hacktivist group calling itself Team GhostShell has posted online the log-in details of 1.6 million accounts belonging to major government agencies like NASA, the FBI, the European Space Agency, and numerous others.

A hacktivist group calling itself Team GhostShell has posted online the log-in details of 1.6 million accounts belonging to major government agencies like NASA, the FBI, the European Space Agency, and numerous others.

The sensitive details include usernames, passwords, email addresses, and even CVs and other data that was uploaded to the various agencies' databases. They have now been uploaded to several different websites to ensure they are widely circulated.

37 organisations and companies were hit in the attack, covering "fields such as aerospace, nanotechnology, banking, law, education, government, military, all kinds of wacky companies & corporations working for the department of defense, airlines and more," according to a press release by the group posted on Pastebin. 150 servers were hacked, using SQL injection to force databases to hand over data, and exposing the databases as lacking the necessary protection one would expect for such agencies, including encryption of log-in details.

The group said the attack is part of Project White Fox, a campaign it is waging to promote free speech online, but added that it had informed security personnel about the insecure servers that were utilised in the hack. This will be a major wakeup call to officials, given that the information could also have been acquired by various espionage agencies throughout the world.

Team GhostShell, which is an offshoot of hackers operating under the Anonymous banner, said this is its "last project," though it suggested that this might only be the final foray for this year. It has certainly gone out with a bang, and it has encouraged others to follow suit, which means we will likely see similar attacks in 2013.